When I was a kid my best friend's brother had a gazillion Garbage Pail Kid stickers plastered to his bedroom door. So rather than having a "do not enter" or "proceed at your own risk" sign he just grossed you out before bugging him. So prior to Netflix, this inspired me to rent Garbage Pail Kids the Movie which in ended up lodged in our VCR player and then eventually became a part of my family. Today the movie has a 35% rating on Rotten Tomatoes which says it all. The Garbage Gang taught me valuable life lessons, for instance everyone is beautiful and valuable even if they are covered in snot and scars. Sure at the time purchasing the rental video cost my mom $50 and she thought my mind was most certainly going to rot from the films content. But surprisingly these gross little fucks taught me something.

Sure they they taught me the essentials of bulimia as how to pull the trigger, pick my nose, grow body hair, pick scabs, zits, and anything pretty much anything disgusting. Sure they were banned from schools along with porn and guns. Garbage Pail Kids were also the punk rock of multipurpose trading cards in the form of sticker, scratch n' stink, magnets, puzzle piece, etc. So basically inspired Vice magazine where you have the Do's and Don'ts of Do it Yourself Cyst Removal, Cum Shots, STDs, Shits, Drugs, and Decapitations. Obviously Garbage Pail Kids arn't necessarily classified a need on the human necessity richter scale. They can't satisfy you hunger, actually they can deter that. Unless you're a midget a hospitable the house of cards won suffice and cards to you tits but most likely that won't get you anywhere. So unless you're Jonny Knoxville or Terry Richardson, Garbage Pail Kids cards served as inspiration not competition, i.e. Tampon Terry. As for Jeffery Dahmer, Joey Buttafuoco, and Lorena Bobbitt maybe they should've just kept their eyes shut.

Actually as a result of parent repulsion, the animated television series never saw fruition. So Leaky Lindsey and Paul Bunion never made to Saturday Morning Cartoons nor Saturday Night Live. Another factor may have been the 1988 lawsuit where the the Cabbage Patch Kids Coleco (who were all the rage) sued the Garbage Pail Kids Topps. Obviously if this were a fist fight we know who'd win. Basically the Garbage Gang could no longer resemble the cabbage patch crybabies, however they could be still say all the disgusting shit you couldn't. Since we can't get enough gore from Saw XVIX, Topps decided to re-release the former cards and then come out with new ones. So thank the Lord, you no longer have to scour Ebay for oldies but goodies.

There come's a time in everyone's lives where you just don't want to do something. Sure there is laundry, grocery shopping, and putting together Ikea furniture. But there's also the really complicated stuff like breakups.

Well finally you don't have to. So just when OkCupid isn't cutting it and you're ready to move, IDUMP4U.com will dump with your significant other. So for a very affordable $10 you can dump anyone, for $25 get out of that tricky engagement, and $50 start ride to divorce court. I know that really doesn't seem like much considering the breadth and depth of the action. Although IDUMP4U's website is tragically outdate they still boast task completion, along with capturing it as a recording. Sure we may have thought Carrie Bradshaw's Post-it note breakup from Sex In The City was bad, now you can have your very own Jerry Springer/Maury Povich YouTube moment on the internet. It is only too bad they don't Skype or Facetime you.

Love hurts that is for sure, which is why the Chinese are so easily grasping the idea of the outsourcing break-ups via consultants. Twitter has also embraced breakups with the Breakup Club and Breakups Tweets/Texts, and with this there are a gazillion other websites and blogs devoted to breaking-up tutorials and then recovery tactics. So if you receivedThe Breakup Bear a 12inch stuffed bear with a t-shirt and a dissolution note from your lover, you may want to consider hiring the Death Bear to remove it. The Death Bear is a seven-foot bear who when texted, schedules a 4 hour-window of time to remove any painful reminders of your past relationship. The idea both brilliant and simple is to to provide you with a clean slate. It is only too bad the bear can't repair your heart and brain. Wash away all the painful memories with amnesia-like memory medicine, prescribe a cure for crying, and foremost take away the pain.

As we're all gearing up for the beach this weekend I ask you take a look at the Rockaway's Lifeguard and Restroom Stations. In the wake of Hurricane Sandy October 2012, New York City along with it's Department of Design and Construction allocated $8.5 million to their construction. So while the Rockaways are still to this day in dire disrepair, this contract went to Garrison Architects and Triton Structural Builders/Designers. The motivation was to create mobile modular trailers to functions comfort stations along the Rockaways' newly constructed boardwalk.

The outcome are 35 trailers; 21 functioning as lifeguard stations and 11 acting as restrooms. The total cost was $113.5 million. Why, you may ask? Well ironically Garisson's mission focuses on well designed environments supporting social cohesion based on the modernist legacy and Triton is proud to construct your project right in every detail. Triton brags about constructing these prefabricated modular building in 87 days, 24/7 3 shift work schedule.

In contrast to the Bauhaus modernist movement, this is a perfect case where form did not follow function. The city, builders, and architects failed to realize and adhere to the NY and NYC highway and road weight restrictions. So it wasn't until after the design, pitch, contracting, and construction when all parties realized these trailers were too heavy to enter NYC via tractor trailer. NOBODY WAS HELD ACCOUNTABLE. So the added $5 million dollars was to pay for the trailers to be barged and craned onto the beach, therefore defeating the entire premise of this project "mobility". So with mobility, loss prevention, cost efficiency, disaster relief, evolution, and innovation thrown out the window, New York beach goers are at a loss.

So next time when you're at the beach and need to take a leak or need a band-aid, revel in the $3.2 million trailer, which easily could have been a $500-1000 Baywatch shack. Also imagine Walter Gropius frowning down upon this glorious feat in stupidity. Ironically enough both contractors received awards for this, and no I don't mean Darwin Awards.

As a result of bathing-suit season, women and men across the globe are looking for quick and easy ways to shape-up and drop a few pounds. With the recent FDA approval of Soylent there has been a more opportune time to starve yourself and give your teeth, tongue, tastebuds, and tummy a break. Soylent is an approved food source made from a mixture of vitamins and raw chemical powers. Soylent is a substitute for food rather than a suppliment or a drug. Envisioned as an open sourced commodity and company, founder Rob Rhinehart fundraised online to institute his start-up. Rhinehart is a twenty-something-millennial software engineer who became disinterested with food and envisioned a healthy lifestyle minus food. For a mere $85 you can obtain 21+ meals thus freeing you body and wallet from the confines if food. In addition to less dishes, one may expect a reduction triglycerides and cholesterol.

Rhinehart has sat upon the royal throne of beige colored diarrhea. Sooner rather than later people, across the US will dispose of their microwaves, toaster, stoves, and dish washers. The bougeoisie will quit going out to dinner, farmers will quit farming, and chefs quit cooking. Soylent is the wave of the future. It will surely accompany astronauts to Mars and be the first meal for those revived from Cryonics. Brooklyn is already featuring the Soylent Sazerac and Miami the Soylent Sex on the Beach. Cocktails are just the beginning, you'll have Soylent gum, Soylent coffee, and Soylent cake. Sure the end product is made by some naked white dude in his dirty hipster bathroom, stirring the batch with his penis, but so what who cares, heck it needs that additional flavoring. Food is overrated, to tell you the truth can't believe its been this popular for so long. Next up lets eliminate water and air, they suck too.

Cars are essentially extensions of ourselves, like magical "feet" that get us to and fro. Cars are a cultural and status symbol, whether your agenda is saving the world (Prius), you're trying to economize (Hyundai), you appreciate longevity (Honda), or you're scared of the Apocalypse (Hummer). The reason there are so many different types of cars is because so many different types of people; and with that I give you car accessories and customization.

Before you even purchase a car you consider its' accessories; such as a TV to shut you kids up or tinted windows to hide your blunts. Now if you have the perfect family you may think of the stick figure family decal a selling point thus allowing you to rub it in all single parent, divorcée, widower, old spinster, and non-traditionalists' faces. The same cannot be said for any woman test driving any car with "panty dropper" across the front, unless she is a lesbian who has to pee a lot. Men on the other hand may love this, along with the sexy female figures adorning 18 wheeler truck flaps or a fuzzy thong covering their spoiler.

It is common, especially in the south, for men to want testosterone to radiate from their truck, Truck Nuts are an option. These are an ultra classy pair of fake rubber testicles designed to hang from a vehicles boat hitch. Where not only can your truck grow a pair, it's passed puberty too, to grow it's very own mustache and 5 clock shadow. There is a mirage of masculinity in the redneck road world. Gun racks for both outside and inside your ride, along with fake arms and legs to hang out your trunk. You also have the childish cartoon decal of Calvin & Hobbes pissing either blindly into air or onto something, ranging from my-ex to city boys, as well incorporating motifs involving the IRS, sports teams, Bin Laden, Obama, and other car manufactures such as Ford and VW.

But wait, don't blow you wad it on fuzzy dice, consider overcompensating in other ways such as antique cars, hydraulics, rims, spinners, Lamborghini doors, 14 karat gold paint job, neon lights, custom murals and interiors. Such as Snoop Dog's Laker Magic 1967 Pontiac Parisienne donning brilliant yellow leather seats and a glowing facade featuring a airbrushed murals of the Lakers equipped with Snoop uniformed as #20. A lot can be attributed to the Chevy Impala, you have Dr. Dre,Tupac, Young Jeezy, and Curren$y rocking the old school models. But let's not forget Justin Bieber's Audi R8 Cheetah print chariot he sashayed into Selena Gomez's 21st Birthday on, and Miley's missing Maserati. 50 Cent featured a Saleen S7 in his video, while Rick Ross raised him an Aston Martin and Roll's Royce, but TI's custom 1939 Lincoln-Zephyr with suicide doors killed it. The most practicals of all pimp rides is the lowrider truck, which you can fill to the brim with diamonds, but can barely conquer a speed bump. My prediction of for a revival of the Chevy Nova or El Caminio convertible equipped with a gun rack, Jacuzzi, transparent under-lite hood, spinners, suicide doors, a mural of the Modern Family, french fry holder, and of course a boat hitch with Truck Nuts.

If you've ever wondered why we all have or will have diabetes, it starts with our love affair of sugar, not only the sweet stuff but the carbohydrates too. As children we watched Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory and became obsessed. Unfortunately neither Gene Wilder or Johnny Depp scared us enough to keep the insulin needles out of our arms.

The gobstopper is a hard candy made almost entirely of sugar. It was invented by British pâtisserier chef Eleanor Isdale, where it's obtained it's name via the English cockney term "gob" meaning mouth. Although the everlasting gobstopper is not everlasting, every child wants one. Whether visiting an amusement park or in the grocery store, parents are faced with daily sugar war. If I give it to them will they shut up? Or will the kids be up all night? Will they they choke to death? Sadly I'm sure it's occurred, and with comparison Kinder Eggs a German candy/toy is banned from the US because it was deemed as choking hazards, however these giant mouth balls of sugar remain perfectly legal.

The Giant Gobstopper has started an entire niche market for enormous edibles. With stores like It's Sugar and Sweet Factory in every mall and vacation destination across North America it's no wonder all American children are not morbidly obese. From the 5lb. gummy bear to the 1.5 lbs. of Fun Dip, we've officially created a monster. There is the 30 lb. gummy worm, and although perverted it is called the Party Python and is priced at $150 with warnings against warm weather shipping. Now this Giant Jawbreaker can cost you anywhere between $3 to $15, but the added incentive of diabetes is free. Dentist love all these things becasue jawbreaker isn't just a clever nickname.

Now that it's vacation season, we all think back to our fiduciary responsibilities and the pros/cons of our purchases. For example whether eating BeanieWeenies every day and risking a heart attack is worth a week vacation in St. Thomas? Obviously we all love a good deal, where with the onset of smart-phones, consumers DO know best.

But how about taking a step-back and embracing the good old days of paper coupon cutting, where there is no better deal than dropping $35 on an Entertainment Coupon book, now with a smart phone app! Time and time again it's been proven you have to spend money to make money, this is certainly one of those instances. While some may call this an investment, others ask why? Do I want to lug this heavy ass book around with me? How much do I value a free ice cream? How long till I completely forget about this thing? Will I actually save any money?

With further investigation I found some coupons relevant to Brooklyn: Popeyes buy-one-get-one-free 11 Pieces of mixed chicken, get another 11 free. Gosh, how much fried chicken can I eat? If I'm still hungry, the ultimate saver is Boston Market $1 off meal or free dessert. First why bother and where is there a Boston Market in NYC? Other opportunities available to me were, Aeropostale $10 off purchase of $50 or more. Is this store making a come back, I heard there was one in the Fulton Mall.

Either way Entertainment LLC is still around. It was founded in 1962 by former veteran and lawyer Hugh and his wife Shelia Potiker. The business began as a small coupon booklet compiled around the kitchen table, however later it became so successful that they were able to retire in La Jolla CA to dedicate their lives to philanthropy. Obvious what all poor people do. After a few mergers and sales, Entertainment was running relatively smoothly until March 2013 when declaring bankruptcy and laying off over 600 employee, with over 200 being Troy Michigan residents alone. The bankruptcy was a result of shareholding financing at the ownership level, which ended in Lowell Potiker (Hugh and Sheila's son) coming to the rescue and purchasing the company for $17.5 million. Over the course of the past 50 years, Entertainment has developed a network of 70,000 local, regional, and national retailers while also helping fundraise over $2.5 billion.

The real question is what exactly were the shareholders doing? It is apparent the Potiker family has done alright, well enough enough they were able to buy back their company and future inheritance. Today's society is smarter, questioning how these Entertainment books still exist. This company preys and benefits off penny-pinchers looking to save, businesses unable to get out there, and fundraisers unaware of Kickstarter and Girls Scout cookies. It would be interesting to know how much money customers actually save versus waste, and or how much unneeded stuff customers get suckered into buying? One thing is for certain, I as well as most people certainly don't need 22 pieces of Popeye's fried chicken, no my how much my mouth says yes, my heart/arteries say no.

LAJ

100 Objects of Popular and Material Culture is an blog exploring the manifestations of human consumption and commodity-ization. The purpose of this experiment is to explore material and popular culture in contemporary society by using objects and concepts to prompt wider questions and reflections. So by emulating The British Museum's and Neil MacGregor's format of A History of the World in 100 Objects I plan to satirically analyze and reinterpreted 100 material culture objects over the course of 2014. Material Culture is the study of our culture's consumption of stuff; namely the manifestation of culture through material productions where people's perceptions of objects is socially and culturally dependent. With this, objects reflect conscious and unconscious beliefs on the the individuals who fabricated, purchased, or used them, and by extension the society where they live. So examining materiality, cultural truths and societal assumptions may be discovered. As anthropologist Arjun Appaduai states "in any society the individual is often caught between the cultural structure of commodity-ization and his own personal attempts to bring a value and order to the universe of things." Objects and commodities make up a much larger symbolic system consisting of want and need, socio-economic status, fashion, etc. Often times form follows function whether the commodity, market, and or consumer forever evolve around one-another. Philosopher Pierre Bourdieu's theories of capital flow full circle; where regardless if you are a minimalist or a hoarder the world is made up of things and everyone will leave their footprint on the earth. So by humorously analyzing marketed objects and concepts, hopefully this blog will provide further incite into ideas of over-consumption, a disposable society, consumerism vs. anti-consumers, planned obsolescence vs. sustainability, as well as the greater good of mankind and future generations.